[Boatanchors] "Chirp is a Beautiful Thing"

Sun Jan 1 11:52:59 EST 2017

Last night I was on 80M in the SKN with my 1KW retro homebrew station 
with built in chirp. I was pleased to get so many 599C reports, and 
surprised that people still remember how to report chirp.

- Paul

- Paul  KW7YAt 04:33 AM 1/1/2017, you wrote:
>These are great descriptions Scott !!
>
>Now I want to listen for them all during the next AWA event!!
>
>
>73 - Bry AF4K
>
>________________________________
>From: Boatanchors <boatanchors-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of 
>Whitebear1122 <whitebear1122 at comcast.net>
>Sent: Friday, December 30, 2016 11:02 PM
>To: boatanchors at mailman.qth.net
>Subject: Re: [Boatanchors] "Chirp is a Beautiful Thing"
>
>Agreed, chirp is a beautiful thing !!   I have participated in the 
>AWA's 1929 QSO Party since around 2001, and I have managed it since 
>2004.  Now there is an activity to hear transmitter "charm" 
>including mild chirp, outrageous chirp, whooping, clicks, buzzing - 
>literally with guys running raw AC on the plates, rectified AC on 
>the plates, and everything in between.
>
>In the QSO Party I run a push pull 210 Colpitts oscillator.  You can 
>see a picture of it on my QRZ.COM <http://qrz.com/> page.  It sounds 
>beautiful on 80m, with a slight bell like sound, and rock 
>stable.  On 40 meters it has a more buzzy sound to it and sometimes 
>is "jumpy" where it just decides to jump 400 Hz or 600 Hz.  Hard to 
>keep something like that in a 300 Hz bandpass filter :)  This years 
>even the 40 meter operation was rock stable with zero jumping but 
>still buzzy.  Just a comment about that Colpitts transmitter.  A 
>friend from work Paul W9MEH gave me that National Girder split 
>stator capacitor one day and said "here, build something around 
>this".  It sat on my work shelf for a year before I decided to build 
>a Colpitts transmitter which requires the split stator cap.  I 
>literally mounted the capacitor first and build the transmitter around it.
>[https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.qrz.com/featuredmember_data/hp_block/66e10e9ff65ef479654dde3968d3440d-image.jpg?v=1482662101]<http://qrz.com/>
>
>Callsign Database by QRZ.COM<http://qrz.com/>
>qrz.com
>Includes news, searchable callsign database, license renewals and 
>updates, DX spotting reports, APRS resources, clubs, solar report, and links.
>
>
>
>My favorite exotic signal:  wind modulation.  The single tube 
>transmitters have no buffering between the oscillator and the 
>antenna, so any movement of the antenna causes the frequency to 
>raise or lower depending on the position of the wire antenna.  I 
>worked a friend in the 29 QSO Party and his signal frequency was 
>slowly rising and lowering several hundred Hz as the antenna wire 
>swung in the wind.  It sounded so beautiful.
>
>The oddest signal:  the "presence".  A friend had a single tube 
>Hartley that wouldn't generate a defined signal or even a buzz.  It 
>was more like he had "a presence on the band", but you couldn't 
>really call it a signal or that he occupied some 
>frequency.  Strangest thing I ever heard.  I did make the QSO though.
>
>And we all remember the old chow-pee chow pit DX guys from the 60's :)
>
>73, Scott WA9WFA
>
> > On Dec 29, 2016, at 10:59 AM, Bill Cromwell <wrcromwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Some of the old timers like to howl and carry on about how they 
> used to walk 10 miles to school through chest deep snow uphill both 
> ways. And how they could so easily pick out one transmitter from 
> the many that could be heard simultaneously on a novice band. Those 
> transmitters all had their own, individual voices and combining 
> that with all those individual fists - of course it was easy. At 
> least less difficult. Some amount of chirp is one of the 
> ingredients. The accursed 'yaecomwood' radios are pretty much 
> "sterile" and all sound alike. CW is sent by keyers, memory keyers, 
> and computers. Pretty much sterile, too.
> >
> > I have looked at some signals with varying amounts of chirp on 
> waterfall displays and I see a small "j" hook on the leading edge. 
> It doesn't take much. There is no need to sweep a dit or dah across 
> two or three QSOs in progress but a small dose of chirp goes a long 
> way toward individual identification. Put the same amount of 'hook' 
> on the other side and two otherwise identical stations are 
> *different*. I have heard some signals in the past that I know must 
> be from a  small amount of modulation - perhaps FM - on that CW 
> tone. It wasn't enough to identify the source of the "problem" but 
> it was enough to identify one ham and his station - instantly. 
> Operating as NCS in NTS traffic nets I could recognize and 
> acknowledge certain stations from just one character in Morse. It 
> isn't all bad.
> >
> > 73,
> >
> > Bill  KU8H
> >
> > On 12/29/2016 08:51 AM, Dale Parfitt wrote:
>
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